Young Link Optimization Project (Current Topic: Edgeguarding Spacies)

[CnB | Chandy]

Now that I have some extra free time on my hands I want to attempt a larger scale research project. I've been dabbling in low tier optimization for a while now but it has usually been in the form of self-contained pieces of specific tech or tools. That kind of thinking is useful in its own right, but I've yet to take a measured, quantifiable approach to improving an entire aspect of a certain character's play, which will be significantly more complex and difficult.

However, I think the practice in itself will be more rewarding, as it could serve as a template for future optimization attempts across the rest of the cast. I plan to carefully monitor the method by which the research is collected, analyzed, and then implemented into actual play, which will provide valuable experience and allow me to streamline the process later. At the very least it will be an interesting exercise in competitive theory, and if we all put our heads together I think everyone here would be better off for it.

I should offer the disclaimer that I don't play Young Link and I don't even plan on developing Young Link as a secondary. I put nearly all of my work into DK these days, but I've chosen to focus on Young Link for this project for the following reasons:

• There does not exist a significant amount of Young Link information that would make our effort pointless. The guides on this forum are either limited in scope or so outdated that they are no longer relevant to the current meta beyond the very basic stuff. The insight offered in the discussion and video threads is useful, but sporadic and decentralized, as well as somewhat inconsistent and unclear at times. The end result of this project would provide a recent and relevant knowledge base for competitive Young Link play that reflects the same level of efficiency and structural development the other relevant characters have seen.
• There are some areas of play in which Young Link isn't completely hopeless. There are some areas of play in which Young Link will likely never stand a chance. At present there is enough room for improvement in his good areas of play that we will confine our research to areas in which we know optimization will provide an objectively quantifiable improvement in his competitive potency. For example, Young Link presently struggles in the spacie match-ups. Choosing to play Young Link in tournament, even if you have a secondary for use against spacies, will inevitably expose you to the possibility of running into game 2 or 3 spacie counterpicks. Thus, even though it is probably not the best idea to use Young Link against spacies, knowing the best way to edgeguard space animals will improve your chances of winning a set over an opponent with a pocket Fox or Falco.
• I have a friend who plays Yung $$$ and I know more information would really help him out.
  
• There exists no conflict of interests when researching a character I don't play or ever plan on playing. I am not obligated or inclined to keep information to myself to give myself any sort of advantage over the rest of the playerbase. Because I don't actually have to play Young Link, I won't get tired of the character or become discouraged or anything like that. I am in it for purely for the learning experience and the challenge.

But hey, I still don't play Young Link. So I won't be generating any new footage, most likely. This where the public aspect of the project comes into play; all yall goobers who actively play YL can contribute footage, participate in the analysis, and offer insight into the practical implementation of the results we come up with. Because I don't claim to have experience in playing this character aside from what I've researched, I am not attached to my theories on what is or is not optimal or practical. Above all else I want to promote intelligent discussion on the relevant topics and avoid any form of misinformation. If you want to make hard claims about stuff or disagree with some other goober who you think is super duper wrong, be prepared to argue for your point. But hey, we just all want to learn, right?

As you can see I have identified the first topic of discussion, which will be edgeguarding space animals. We don't necessarily have to exhaustively "solve" a certain topic completely before moving on, but I want to spend a good amount of time on each one. Enough to generate a significant body of analyzed footage and provide satisfying answers to relevant questions that I will identify at the beginning of each topic. Possible future topics include dthrow tech chases, defensive ledge options, and character specific down-air KO set-ups. As this is a crowdsourced guide, however, I'm open to suggestions on what we should research and how we should go about researching it.

TOPIC 1: EDGEGUARDING SPACIES
​

Young Link has a haxdash, a 14 frame invincible ledgedash, two good projectiles and one situational one, several disjointed aerials and grounded options, a walljump, great aerial mobility, a very fast ledge grab with his runoff up-B, a recovery that allows him to go fairly deep for kills, and a great persistent hitbox sex kick in his nair. With all of those tools, it is undeniable that he has the potential to edgeguard space animals very well. I am not claiming that he has an edgeguarding flowchart that is as robust as Marth's or Sheik's in the spacie match-up, but there is certainly room for optimization here. Given how much YL struggles against Fox and Falco, knowing what do when you create an edgeguard opportunity is essential, whether you're a solo YL hero or you've been counterpicked with a spacie and now have to play out game 2 on Stadium or FD with your pocket/secondary YL, because you're a goober.

The guiding questions of this topic are:

1) In general, when is it best to edgeguard a spacie from the ledge and when are you better off staying on stage? Consider variables that will produce a unique or varied "recovery decision tree" like whether or not they have a double jump, whether or not they will need to use their double jump, the varying heights at which they can choose to side-B or up-B when recovering high or on stage, and whether or not they are in a position to recover with a non-standard option as a mix-up, like riding the wall to sweetspot from below, shortening to ledge from above, or airdodging up to grab ledge.

2) Depending on their percent and DI, a spacie may get sent at varying angles and end up in various locations offstage against Young Link. Because of this, a spacie may take a longer or shorter amount of time tumble down into a range where he can attempt to get back on stage or to the ledge by committing to an option. This means you will have a varying amount of prep time to pull bombs, throw boomerangs, take ledge, or charge a smash attack based on how long it takes for a spacie to enter your sphere of influence, including possible shinestalls and the start up of Firefox or Illusion. Given x amount of prep time and y "recovery decision tree" circumstances (see above), what is the optimal configuration of projectiles you should throw (or otherwise prepare, in the case of a bomb or a charged arrow) to cover the most options and lead to the best chance of a successful edgeguard.

3) At what point does the reward of going out after a spacie to edgeguard them proactively (by trying to hit them out of their up-B, side-B, or double jump as opposed to waiting onstage or at the ledge to edgeguard them reactively) outweigh the risk of screwing up and getting counter-edgeguarded yourself or, at the very least, giving up stage control? What moves should you use when attempting a proactive edgeguard that will be non-committal enough minimize your risk in case of failure while still being strong enough to achieve a positive result (either ending the edgeguard with a kill or ending up in a position to reasonably continue the edgeguard assuming good reaction time, solid execution, and perfect decision making) if executed successfully? Consider the variables that contribute to the various different "recovery decision tree" circumstances as mentioned in the above two questions. Also consider whether or not you have a bomb or time to pull one.

I don't expect anyone to answer those questions right now, and that's okay. You can try if you want, it may be a good exercise in articulating what you already know on the subject. Identifying what you think you do or do not know will certainly help you as you move forward in your own research and theory craft. If you have a guiding question that you think it will help us to look into, please let me know what it is and I'll add it to the list.

Preliminary thoughts? I'm really tired right now, that was a lot of writing. TOMORROW (or maybe not tomorrow if I'm busy or lazy) I will explain the method by which we will start our research. The first phase will be all about footage analysis. If you know of footage of Young Link vs a spacie (doesn't have to be your own play) that includes a particularly good edgeguarding sequence, please track it down. I will be providing a template for analyzing footage that allows us to produce detailed write-ups that accurately and efficiently catalog all the variables and conditions that go into an edgeguarding sequence. When we have all this data compiled in a uniform and itemized format, it will be significantly easier to go about answering the guiding questions.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

Okay, so here's how phase 1 works.

Scour youtube for footage of Young Link successfully edgeguarding a space animal, or otherwise record your own. Now that 20XXTE is a thing, it'll be a lot easier for you to get footage of yourself. No more excuses! Even if you have no way of uploading the footage normally, either via a capture card or screen capture if you're netplay kid with Dolphin, if it's worth watching then save the replay. I don't even care if you have to record your 20XXTE replays with your phone camera or some ****, footage is footage as far as research purposes are concerned. As long as we can tell what's going on, nobody cares.

The edgeguards don't need to be flashy or innovative. We are only concerned with what takes stocks. If that means ftilting and nairing some poor Fox like five times in a row, it doesn't matter. That being said, edgeguards that exhibit particularly good option coverage, technical finesse, or unconventional usage of a certain tool are visually appealing as well as valuable to the project. Overly simple or short edgeguards, for example, "I nair a Fox on a platform, then take ledge and roll up" will likely not be worth doing a write-up on, unless they are technically impressive or a low percent gimp, for example. Videos of Axe and Laijin vs spacies are obviously a good place to start, and there should be a good chunk of those.

The cool thing about research is that ALMOST complete edgeguards can be analyzed as well. If an edgeguard would have been completed if not for a simple execution error or bad decision or hesitation, analyzing all the things that went right in the edgeguard is still useful to us. If you're getting footage from a 20xxTE replay, you can even go back and correct the edgeguard yourself, since you can take control of a replay at any time. That's pretty cool for our purposes.

Trying to describe all the relevant variables that go into an edgeguard sequence is hard. Hopefully this template will help you out.

Source Footage: (Include a link to a timestamped youtube video. If it's within 15 seconds long, consider making a gfycat of it for the sake of convenience).

Initial Conditions: (List what move was used to knock the spacie off stage in the first place, list what percent they were at BEFORE you hit them with that move, describe where you were on stage when you hit them with that move. If the hit that knocked them off stage was a trade, describe what you traded with and if you were slowed down by being knocked down or forced to tech or whatever.)

Prep Time: (How much time did you have between the first frame on which you were actionable after the attack/trade that knocked your opponent off stage and the frame on which the spacie player committed to a recovery option? A spacie commits to a recovery option when they input a side-B, when they exit the start-up of firefox, or when they otherwise initiate a movement option that has the end result of them landing onstage or grabbing ledge. Use half speed on youtube/gfycat and the game timer to get an exact number in seconds. You can convert seconds to frames if you want: 1 second = 60 frames. Depending on their percent, this may be a very small window of time.)

Set Up: (Prior to the spacie committing to a recovery option (as defined above), did you throw any boomerangs, pull any bombs, plant any bombs on the ground/ledge/platform, throw or drop any bombs offstage, fire/charge an arrow, charge a smash attack, or initiate an aerial? If so, make sure to describe the angle at which you threw a boomerang or bomb, and whether you did a smash throw or a regular throw or a z-drop. Did you take ledge? Did you refresh invincibility? Any and all actions you perform or initiate prior to the spacie committing to a recovery option should be noted here.)

Sequence: (Here you will describe the edgeguarding sequence that takes place pursuant to the conditions outlined in the preceding sections. For edgeguards that allow the spacie multiple chances to try to recover, this section will be lengthy. Use the following format, beginning with the first recovery option the space commits to:

1)<List the recovery option and their intended destination, e.g. mid-shorten to ledge, up-B at a straight horizontal to the right slightly above ledge to land on stage> (<List the % of the spacie at the time the option is chosen.>
2)<List the move you did to cover that option, noting where on or off stage you hit the spacie and whether you got a weak or strong hitbox or whether it was a trade or not. Also note the other options the spacie could have chosen that you would have covered at the same time, taking into account boomerangs and bombs. If you have time to perform any set-up (see the above section) after landing the hit described here, note how much time you had and what you did.>
3)<List the recovery option the spacie chooses next, and all the same information as in (1), including their % in parentheses. If at any time the spacie uses or regains their double jump, make note of it.>
4)<List all the same information as in 2 for whatever coverage you chose next.>

And so on and so forth until the sequence is over, either by you taking the stock or them escaping your coverage and resetting to neutral. All the spacie's actions will be odd numbers, all of Young Link's will be even numbers.)

Possible Optimizations: (Identify any superfluous or suboptimal actions you performed in the set-up and/or edgeguarding sequence described above. For example, if when trying to throw a boomerang at a low angle off stage, you end up not being close enough to the edge and the boomerang hits the ground in that weird shallow angle where it rebounds backwards and flies off behind you WORTHLESSLY, then you performed a superfluous action that took away precious frames from your set-up time that could have been used to perform an action that would have increased your coverage. A sub optimal action is one that effectively covers an option, but could have been substituted for an option that would either directly cover other options in addition to that option (or indirectly put you in a postion to perform another action that would still cover more options) or an option that would cover that option with more reward, like hitting with a weak dsmash but still finishing the edgeguard afterward versus just taking ledge and ending the stock there. Standing around doing nothing when you had time to throw a boomerang or pull a bomb could be mentioned here as well. This will probably be the hardest question to answer when you consider how many options Young Link has at the edge, but hey, this is where you get to do your most critical of thinking! Fun!)

I'll put up the first example tomorrow probably! Woo. Smash research. THE BEST. So fun. my gosh. so excited.

 

[ihasabuket]

I have an M2K inspired edgeguard system for spacies. Basically I start by covering side b with jab. Remember M2K's words "expect the side b and react to the up b"

As you can see it hits lower than marths dtilt and has about the same IASA(1 frame difference). Falco cant sweetspot side b. Fox might be able to, but its really hard for him to. Doesnt usually happen.

Anyway if you catch a spacie out of a side b over the ledge you have to expect another side b. If you catch a side b sweetspot attempt they have to up b. At this point you dont even have to react to up b because

1. Aerial side/up b uses up a DJ
2. If a spacie is below the ledge without a DJ they can only up b or shinestall to survive.

So here you can hit confirm jab and just run offstage to nair them. If they recover low with an up b and you're too late to go offstage you can always grab ledge and do a rising nair. You can also go for a dsmash if youre confident you can land it.

If they up b above the ledge you have a whole 42 frames before they start moving. If theyre close enough go out there and hit them with a nair. Ideally you wanna hit a fair but it's very situational.
If they up b too far for you to reach just grab ledge. Personally I like using ledge attack instead of roll, especially when they look like they might barely make it onstage.

If they go over you with side b or upwards with up b you can get a pretty easy grab as theyre landing. Assuming theyre above 55%(around there) upthrow should give you an aerial followup. Now if they land on a platform using side b or a low upwards angle of up b you'll probably have to opt for an aerial. This should be particularly useful in those situations on Yoshi's and PS.

I'll try to organize this later but I gotta go for now.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

Anyway if you catch a spacie out of a side b over the ledge you have to expect another side b. If you catch a side b sweetspot attempt they have to up b. At this point you dont even have to react to up b because

1. Aerial side/up b uses up a DJ
2. If a spacie is below the ledge without a DJ they can only up b or shinestall to survive.

...

If they go over you with side b or upwards with up b you can get a pretty easy grab as theyre landing. Assuming theyre above 55%(around there) upthrow should give you an aerial followup. Now if they land on a platform using side b or a low upwards angle of up b you'll probably have to opt for an aerial. This should be particularly useful in those situations on Yoshi's and PS.

Identifying jab as an edgeguard tool is very helpful. Between the disjoint, fast start-up, low hitbox and minimal commitment I think it will be easy to implement into several different parts of the flowchart we may eventually be able to construct.

However, you should be aware of the fact that using up-B or side-B in the air does not necessarily require the spacie to burn their double jump. Because jab has very little hitstun and is unlikely to knock the spacie very far away, I could imagine a situation in which, say, a Falco gets jabbed out of his side B, then immediately double jumps back onstage with a dair or something like that. I don't know how likely or feasible that is, but I guess what I'm getting at is that jab is only a particularly solid option if the double jump is burned.

In the case that the spacie still has their double jump, I think we would need an option that would have enough knockback to prevent them from immediately double jumping back onstage. Have you thought about or actively experimented with substituting jab for something like ftilt, dtilt, or the back hit of dsmash in the same situation? What are the benefits and drawbacks of those options? Jab will drop the spacie below the edge but still close to the stage, which is a bad spot because YL can easily go down and hit them, but it also opens them up to recovery options that they wouldn't have if they were farther from the stage, like riding the wall with an up-B. If you should happen to get a reverse hitbox with your runoff nair, they have a chance to tech the wall. These possibilities may not end the edgeguard outright or even be all that common in practice, but for the purposes of theorycraft, they are a non-negligible factor in the equation that we should consider.

Further, what are the advantages and disadvantages of throwing a boomerang or a bomb at a straight horizontal angle to cover a side-B or an up-B? The further away from the stage that you can hit a spacie, the better, right? I'd assume that as long as the projectile inhabits the same x-axis position as the path of a side-B, a boomerang or a bomb would provide superior coverage of that option as opposed to a jab, especially in the case of a boomerang, since an active hitbox will remain in that x-axis position for longer because the boomerang also has a return path.

However, that consideration has to be made in the context of how much prep time you have to prepare projectile coverage, which is why the answer to question 2 will be especially important for our purposes. Jab has the obvious advantage of requiring no set-up other than positioning at the ledge. Being able to throw projectiles and create active hitboxes, either in the y-axis or the x-axis, significantly improves Young Link's coverage off stage without needing to give up stage position. These gfys are mostly meant to be impressive and flashy, but they demonstrate a proof of concept for projectile edgeguarding with Young Link. Surely there's a way we can look into all the potential ways YL can set up a projectile wall and determine which configurations are the most optimal.

 

[ihasabuket]

However, you should be aware of the fact that using up-B or side-B in the air does not necessarily require the spacie to burn their double jump.

It does actually take your DJ away, the post is misleading. Kadano explains that momentum carries over to the upb startup but DJ resets all horizontal momentum. Basically if you can use upb without using your DJ you can keep your horizontal momentum.
So upon further investigation I learned once you start traveling with your up b you lose your DJ. Side b does take your DJ away however. So hitting someone out of startup with boomerang will let them keep their DJ but it is unlikely that they will execute up b without using their DJ.

The downside to boomerang edgeguarding is that its damage decreases the farther it travels. It needs to have at least 8% more damage to outprioritize fox's startup hitbox; Usually fox upb eats the boomerang. It can work to cover an option preemptively after knocking a spacie offstage since fox doesnt have a hitbox right away and falco has none. Falco's recovery is so short though that if theyre recovering low you might as well nair or grab the ledge. Bomb can definitely work if you have enough time and it will more than likely lead to a kill.

I dont have a setup to test this but if theyre too close to the wall to nair the best option might be grabbing ledge and using an invincible ledge attack. This way if they ride along the wall to sweetspot you edgehog but if they go up or over you hit them back offstage.
Alternatively you can try to time a dtilt or jab. While dtilt is meteor cancelable it forces them to recover from very low setting up an easy edgeguard since it has relatively low endlag and upb has 42 frames of startup. In this case you have to aim to cover riding up the wall and react to straight up if you missed it.

In short, throw projectiles to cover options preemptively and use the method I described in case they avoided the projectiles. Of course this should be subject to improvement so gimme all you got guys.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

Oh, well that's good to hear. Jab sounds pretty good to me, but my only problem with it is that you can't jab with a bomb. Have you considered using a run-off up-B ledge grab in place of jab when trying to pre-emptively cover a side-B? Laijin does it here. The hitboxes on grounded up-B are pathetically small, sadly, but I think if you do the runoff up-B as early as possible, like he does here, the fact that he's drifting downward to snap to ledge with continuous hitboxes should allow you to cover side-B to land on stage or side-B to ledge that's slightly high. Not sure if it would cover a lower sweetspot, could you look into that? Or maybe one of our Yung $$$ pros who knows their way around dolphin? (paging @MagicScrumpy) If it doesn't hit a low side B sweetspot, will it at least edgehog it and allow you to take the stock anyway?

Assuming you will hit sweet spot to ledge, throwing out a run-off up-B in anticipation of a side-B would cover side-B on stage and side-B to ledge, but it would also end with YL on the ledge with fresh invincibility. That's an excellent position for him to be in to cover anything else the spacie might do in case you guess wrong and he doesn't side-B. Now that YL has ledge, he can just roll up-B to cover an up-B that's far away, and he'll be in position to cover mix-ups like side-B shorten to drop down on to ledge or airdodge up to grab ledge. If the spacie can Firefox in such a way that they'll land on stage, you can do a ledgehop invincible nair to beat out straight horizontal firefox angles or firefox angles from below. That sounds like pretty good coverage, right?

However, because you can up-B and still hold on to a bomb, if you have prep time to pull a bomb, you could supplement your option coverage by doing a run-off up-B with a bomb in hand. Then you won't even have to wait for the spacie to firefox back towards stage so you can nair them or whatever. You can ledge hop bomb throw, which will outprioritize Firefox in transit and set up nicely for you to run out there and combo bomb into nair or fair or boomerang or whatever.

Have you considered it? Jab is nice, but if you have the prep time to pull a bomb, it seems like this could be better coverage. I'm not sure. Where's @Laijin when you need him?

 

[ihasabuket]

You're definitely right pulling a bomb is definitely better but you need quite a lot of time to setup(34 frames of pull animation). Runoff up b wont cover sweetspots but if youre covering options preemptively you'll edgehog anyways. Usually after hitting fox offstage at high %s your best option is to pull bomb since you'll have enough time. Fortress | Sveet does this neat little edgeguard where he grabs ledge with a bomb, ledge attacks and then bomb-> aerials. Sometimes a dair is a better option if they land on a platform at high % but the great part is you can always zdrop(1 frame) and do the aerial anyway.
The porblem with this is that at earlier %s the aerial endlag/landing lag + bomb pull takes too long and they get out of hitstun and start their recovery before you're actionable.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

A fair point. So have we identified runoff up-B to be objectively better than standing jab for covering side-B to ledge or onstage, regardless of whether or not you have a bomb? I will attempt to outline the relevant characteristics of each, feel free to weigh in.

Jab:
1) Assuming you are in position, only requires 6 frames of prep time to produce an active hitbox
2) Hits below the ledge, allowing it to cover side-B on stage and sweetspot to ledge for the three frames it is active
3) Roughly 21 frame commitment
4) Allows simple runoff nair or fair follow-up (if spacie has no double jump)
5) May allow spacie the chance to ride the wall or tech the stage off of a reverse nair hit
6) Low commitment allows possible reactions* to mix-ups and non-side-B options by the spacie (shorten, double jump airdodge to grab ledge, horizontal firefox, low firefox angles, wallride firefox to sweetspot ledge)

Runoff Up-B
1) Requires 8 frames to produce an active hitbox, plus the time it took you to initiate the dash or the run**
2) Does not hit low sweetspots, but if done pre-emptively, it will edgehog them anyway
3) Very low frame commitment if performed correctly, but awful endlag or an SD if you screw it up
4) Ends with Young Link on the edge with fresh invincibility, allowing them to use invincible ledgehop aerials to cover subsequent firefox angles, either by jumping out after them (proactive) or waiting for firefox to travel close enough to the stage that you can hit them
5) Allows Young Link to grab ledge with a bomb if he had time to pull one, which is ALWAYS (?) better
6) Automatically places Young Link in a position to edgehog or roll-up from any option that involves sweetspotting to ledge (firefox angles from far away, side-B shorten from above, double jump air dodge)
7) Can be done from a platform on some stages, potentially aiding its versatility***

* Assuming good reaction time and perfect decision making in the moment, what option will you do after the pre-emptive jab to cover side-B that will result in the most optimal coverage of the options that the spacie has left at this time, in case the spacie chooses not to side-B?
** We should look into the optimal earliest timing of runoff up-B to produce active hitboxes on the earliest possible frame while still getting the slide off. Also look into the shortest distance from the ledge Young Link must be to initiate runoff up-B at the optimal timing.
*** Will performing a runoff up-B from a side platform produce the same coverage of side-B? Maybe even better coverage, as it would place active hitboxes over a wider vertical range as he slides down off of the platform onto the ledge. Side note, on which platform stages can this be done? Probably not Pokemon Stadium but I'm not sure about the others.

 

[ihasabuket]

A fair point. So have we identified runoff up-B to be objectively better than standing jab for covering side-B to ledge or onstage, regardless of whether or not you have a bomb? I will attempt to outline the relevant characteristics of each, feel free to weigh in.

Jab:
1) Assuming you are in position, only requires 6 frames of prep time to produce an active hitbox
2) Hits below the ledge, allowing it to cover side-B on stage and sweetspot to ledge for the three frames it is active
3) Roughly 21 frame commitment
4) Allows simple runoff nair or fair follow-up (if spacie has no double jump)
5) May allow spacie the chance to ride the wall or tech the stage off of a reverse nair hit
6) Low commitment allows possible reactions* to mix-ups and non-side-B options by the spacie (shorten, double jump airdodge to grab ledge, horizontal firefox, low firefox angles, wallride firefox to sweetspot ledge)

Runoff Up-B
1) Requires 8 frames to produce and active hitbox, including the time it took you to initiate the dash or the run**
2) Does not hit low sweetspots, but if done pre-emptively, it will edgehog them anyway
3) Very low frame commitment if performed correctly, but awful endlag or an SD if you screw it up
4) Ends with Young Link on the edge with fresh invincibility, allowing them to use invincible ledgehop aerials to cover subsequent firefox angles, either by jumping out after them (proactive) or waiting for firefox to travel close enough to the stage that you can hit them
5) Allows Young Link to grab ledge with a bomb if he had time to pull one, which is ALWAYS (?) better
6) Automatically places Young Link in a position to edgehog or roll-up from any option that involves sweetspotting to ledge (firefox angles from far away, side-B shorten from above, double jump air dodge)

* Assuming good reaction time and perfect decision making in the moment, what option will you do after the pre-emptive jab to cover side-B that will result in the most optimal coverage of the options that the spacie has left at this time, in case the spacie chooses not to side-B?
** We should look into the optimal earliest timing of runoff up-B to produce active hitboxes on the earliest possible frame while still getting the slide off. Also look into the shortest distance from the ledge Young Link must be to initiate runoff up-B at the optimal timing.

Well runoff side b is better for covering options when theyre coming from below the ledge with a DJ since they'll either get edgehogged or leave you actionable during their upb startup. You can probably cover a side b over the ledge attack or punish it with ledgedash(12 frames of intangibility) grab since youd have the ledge preemptively.
Jab is better when theyre coming down since you dont have to go through the ledge grab(7 or 8 frames dont remember) and ledgedash to get back on stage. Plus you cant reach the platforms directly from the ledge. Jab is lower commitment and leaves you in a better position to punish a recovery towards the middle of the stage or onto platforms.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

I have some questions to ask you about jab coverage but I haven't been able to articulate exactly what I want to ask yet so I'll lay off that for a little bit.

In other news, since we have identified that having a bomb on the ledge is generally a really good thing for Young Link, I have been testing out the fastest possible ways for Young Link to pull a bomb and grab ledge while wasting the least amount of frames from center stage on Battlefield. Unfortunately I've lent out my capture card at the moment; otherwise I would post gfys of what I came up with but for now I'll settle for descriptions.

Dash towards ledge, pivot wavedash back (so you're wavedashing towards the ledge now), full jump rising bomb pull as you continue holding towards the ledge. You will complete the bomb pull as you finish your jump arc, then you can fastfall down to grab ledge. Alternatively, you can dash pivot wavedash back short hop back bomb pull, and then since you retain your momentum from the short hop backwards and Young Link slides a little bit when he hits the ground, you will end your jump onstage but slide off and grab ledge just as you finish pulling out the bomb. Unfortunately you can't complete a bomb pull in one short hop so short hopping backward on to the ledge directly as you pull out a bomb won't work, you'll have to waste time double jumping back up towards the ledge before you can grab it. I'm not sure if the extra time spent full hopping is faster overall than the time you save short hopping combined with the frames you lose during the slide off.

Note that those two options require you to be facing backwards, meaning you can't use Young Link's dash/run to close the distance between you and the ledge, which is his fastest method of grounded movement. I found an option that I think is the fastest and allows for a forward facing bomb pull ledge grab. However, it is also the hardest method by far.

As we know, you can execute a slide-off up-B out of Young Link's dash or run because he has somewhat low traction, which allows him to slide forward and off the ledge because of the momentum he retains even after he has initiated his grounded up-B. However, you can also execute a slide-off up-B from a running shorthop towards the ledge, because he slides a little bit upon landing, which is enough momentum to allow the slide off to happen. With incredibly precise spacing, you have to dash towards the ledge, short hop, input a bomb pull within the first three frames you are airborne, and then upon landing with your bomb, input up-B such that the momentum from the dash jump will cause you to slide off and grab ledge. The spacing is very tight and the input is kind of weird. Once your input your bomb pull you have to hold forward for a bit to keep your jump momentum going for the rest of your jump arc, and then you have to move your stick up to input up-B once you've landed. So you have to do this weird double quarter circle movement with the analog stick, where you move from down to the side after pulling the bomb to control your jump arc, and then from the side to up so you can input up-B.

If you try it out a bunch on your own and you don't get it, don't worry. Trust me, it's a real thing, but it's also really tough to get consistent without a lot of practice. I am dreading having to upload footage of it because I know it will take me so many tries. However, mastering it will pay off in more than just the spacie match-ups; being able to make the most efficient use of your limited prep time is applicable to edgeguarding in any match-up. For the purposes of our spacie edgeguards, it also offers all the benefits of a runoff up-B in terms of what we know on our flowchart so far, in addition to the implicit advantage you get from having a bomb, control of the ledge and fresh invincibility. Definitely worth the practice IMO, though I could just be overestimating the utility. Your thoughts?

Oddly enough it's easier to do when Whispy's blowing wind at you on Dream Land since you get a slight continuous momentum boost from the windbox which makes the slide off easier. Side note for optimal swag, you can do a max momentum run-off up-B from the side platform on dreamland while the wind is behind you and you'll go a bit farther than usual. So you just like fly out into the abyss with your grounded up-B all the way down. I call it the Wind Waker. If you want to swag and live, pull a bomb beforehand so the explosion will save you and let you recover afterwards. What has science done?

 

[Benny P]

Oddly enough it's easier to do when Whispy's blowing wind at you on Dream Land since you get a slight continuous momentum boost from the windbox which makes the slide off easier. Side note for optimal swag, you can do a max momentum run-off up-B from the side platform on dreamland while the wind is behind you and you'll go a bit farther than usual. So you just like fly out into the abyss with your grounded up-B all the way down. I call it the Wind Waker. If you want to swag and live, pull a bomb beforehand so the explosion will save you and let you recover afterwards. What has science done?

^thats some goddamn swagger i gotta test out.

Hey Chandy, I'm afraid i don't have much to add, being somewhat new/novice YL main. But what you're doing here is amazing, and i surely hope it sparks great conversation and information. YL boards here have been either Outdated af, useless "what if" threads, and a small serving of things that are actually useful. You rock!

 

[CnB | Chandy]

You can help out by trying to implement the stuff we talk about and letting us know how it actually does in practice, making sure to consider variables like execution consistency vs. reward based on your technical limitations. That's half the battle as far as the goals of this project are concerned. It's also the reason why recording and analyzing footage is so important to supplementing our theorycraft; being able to TAS something or do it one time out of ten tries in solo practice is nice as a preliminary proof of concept, but actually showing evidence of its dividends in real matches is more demonstrative of objective, quantifiable improvement. Insofar as this project will also be an instructional tool, having a visual example of a certain option will make it much easier to replicate in your own play.

If you guys start saving hella 20XXTE replays we'll even be able to go back and modify each other's edgeguards to suggest possible optimizations. The game engine is the best way to know if you can implement something; a lot of sitting around looking at gfys and trying to guess what would have worked is useful to a point, but there are real possibilities for methodical research with this tool now. Please get this miracle tool immediately.

Even if you're totally hopeless and you don't generate any worthwhile footage, there's still a considerable backlog of Young Link vs spacies footage out there that can be sifted through and analyzed. The template makes it pretty simple, but there are some sections that might take a bit of thinking and rewatching. I'll do one just to get things started and set an example:

#1: Straight Horizontal Boomerang into Walk-Up Ftilt

Source Footage:
http://youtu.be/-4NEJHFGt-k?t=561
http://gfycat.com/ColorlessPastelGreendarnerdragonfly

Initial Conditions: Strong hit dash attack at 87% under the left edge of Pokemon Stadium's right platform. No trade.

Prep Time: 5:09:73 - 5:09:02 = .71ms = ~43 frames between first actionable frame after dash attack and Falco initiating up-B.

Set Up: Dashed forward the length of YL's full initial dash and threw grounded boomerang straight horizontal.

Sequence:

1) Used double jump immediately, initiated up-B quickly at a height roughly equidistant between ledge height and the side platform, roughly two character lengths away from the stage. Likely intended to up-B at a slight upward angle to land on stage or on the platform, or possibly up-B downwards to grab ledge from above. (97%)
2) Boomerang hit Falco out of his up-B start up before he could move. Also covered side-B onstage with the same boomerang, potentially covered a lower side-B to ledge or to land closer to the ground with the walk-up ftilt. Had the Falco shine stalled at the height he up-B'd at, the boomerang would get reflected but might clank with ftilt (not sure on this). That would allow YL to jab a side-B attempt after dropping down from the shine stall, assuming he had good reaction time.
3) Falco dropped two character heights below stage and initiated up-B, choosing a sharp upward angle to land on stage or drift back to grab ledge, possibly. (104%)
4) Full hop dair for the kill off the top. Falco mostly likely couldn't have ridden the wall to sweetspot at his angle, leaving him only three options: a shallow angle to land onstage, a steep angle to land onstage, or straight up and drifting to ledge. Full hop dair covers all three; obviously it traded with the steep angle in the gfy, but he would have just fallen down onto the shallow angle as well, possibly needing to fastfall. If Falco had gone straight up, he would have drifted to the right and hit Falco on his way down towards the ledge; Falco is forced to either drift into the dair or fall to his death. Optimal coverage?*

Possible Optimizations: When throwing the boomerang, he could have done a dash jump, which would allow him to throw out the boomerang while in motion to save frames. Would have probably allowed him to clank ftilt with double jump shine stall to reflect boomerang because of the extra frames, and would have put him in a position to cover double jump shine stall shorten to ledge, which would probably avoid this ftilt as timed in the video.

Oh man guys. There's nothing quite like data entry to really make you love this game. >_<

 

[ihasabuket]

2) Boomerang hit Falco out of his up-B start up before he could move. Also covered side-B onstage with the same boomerang, potentially covered a lower side-B to ledge or to land closer to the ground with the walk-up ftilt. Had the Falco shine stalled at the height he up-B'd at, the boomerang would get reflected but might clank with ftilt (not sure on this). That would allow YL to jab a side-B attempt after dropping down from the shine stall, assuming he had good reaction time.

Not really sure but I think Falco may have been able to sweetspot side b. Even if he couldnt I dont agree with the ftilt. In this situation I think it would have been better to walk a little farther out and jab since it hits lower and has less endlag. You dont really need the KB and the setup it provides is easy to follow up on.

4) Full hop dair for the kill off the top. Falco mostly likely couldn't have ridden the wall to sweetspot at his angle, leaving him only three options: a shallow angle to land onstage, a steep angle to land onstage, or straight up and drifting to ledge. Full hop dair covers all three; obviously it traded with the steep angle in the gfy, but he would have just fallen down onto the shallow angle as well, possibly needing to fastfall. If Falco had gone straight up, he would have drifted to the right and hit Falco on his way down towards the ledge; Falco is forced to either drift into the dair or fall to his death. Optimal coverage?*

While it may have covered all the options I dont agree with full hop dair here. It would have been faster and better to just run off nair. I know for sure Falco can't make it back, even with optimal DI. I dont like to cover options when you can secure a kill while someone is in a 42 frame startup window.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

I got my capture card back so I was able to throw together this quick video detailing the extent of my bomb pull ledge grab investigations so far. Let me know what you guys think, and if you have any questions about what's being performed.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

While it may have covered all the options I dont agree with full hop dair here. It would have been faster and better to just run off nair. I know for sure Falco can't make it back, even with optimal DI. I dont like to cover options when you can secure a kill while someone is in a 42 frame startup window.

I agree. I think according to our definition of optimal, ease of execution should also be a consideration when two options are functionally equivalent. Choosing to full hop dair would have been harder both spacing and timing wise, and he would potentially need to make a second phase of decisions upon reacting to an up-B straight up (drifting right to catch the descent towards ledge) or a shallow up-B angle on stage (fastfalling in order to hit Fire Falco in transit before he can touch the ground). That opens up room for error that you won't have to worry about if you just runoff nair him before he can even exit the start-up. Runoff nair is more generous in execution anyway, but with Falco at that percent it's death either way. Nair is clearly a better choice here. Although full hop dair still takes the stock every time, for the sake of simplicity runoff nair will still always be preferable.

 

[TriNewton]

In regards to covering a immediate side-b- I think arrow is the most reliable option for covering a side-B that isn't high. It you immediately loose an arrow it always stops them in their tracks and leaves them up-B'ing below the ledge, which is a position that is super easy for us to exploit. You can also do it somewhat on reaction, and it's faster than using the boomerang.

Also, if you're nairing a high Falco side-b, always stay on stage. Always.

 

[ihasabuket]

In regards to covering a immediate side-b- I think arrow is the most reliable option for covering a side-B that isn't high. It you immediately loose an arrow it always stops them in their tracks and leaves them up-B'ing below the ledge, which is a position that is super easy for us to exploit. You can also do it somewhat on reaction, and it's faster than using the boomerang.

Also, if you're nairing a high Falco side-b, always stay on stage. Always.

Hmm arrow could be good i'll try it out.
As for nairing a high side b, I don't think you should be doing this in the first place. As I mentioned before if you just punish the landing on a high side b you have more options, more time, and better punishes. Usually you get a pretty free grab which gives you an up throw -> aerial.

 

[ihasabuket]

Not really sure about arrow tbh the thing about covering options with boomerang is that side b cant go through the boomerang as it comes back. Arrows travel arc makes it so it doesnt cover side b for that long. Arrows are much better for the falcon MU though. Either way i'll try arrows out in the spacie MU anyways.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

Could you start charging an arrow, and then release it on reaction to the side-B start up? That would solve the problem of the arrow only covering the side-B option for a certain period of time. If you only release the arrow when you know a spacie will be traveling in its path, the throw arc is inconsequential. However, charging an arrow makes you commit to one option, and if they don't side-B and drop down firefox instead, you'll have to get rid of the arrow and then scramble to cover a low firefox angle. It may be good but it's not as versatile as runoff up-B or jab in my opinion, which will do the same job but put you in a better position afterwards. Also I'm not sure but I think you can do a dash short hop arrow slide off up-B just like the last bomb pull I showed in my video, but I bet it's equally as hard.

I have some technical questions for @MagicScrumpy or otherwise walljump master schmooblidon , or if anyone else knows the answer, feel free to clue me in. First off, see these three threads about instant walljumping and wall jump stalls. From this information I have gathered that you can prepare an instant walljump by using special moves as well as double jumps to rub up against the wall, which allows you to store your walljump and use it immediately off the ledge. My question is whether or not you can store a wall jump as you slide off the stage when doing a runoff up-B. Because Young Link seems to just barely creep over the edge of the stage for certain timings of run-off, I think it could be possible to store a walljump during that time. Can anyone confirm?

As for the wall jump stall, then, we also know that you can use aerials to cancel the fixed jump arc of the walljump, which gives you more control over your aerial mobility. With this in mind, I feel like instant walljump nair is better for beating out a low angle or ledge-height Firefox in every way than a ledgehop invincible nair. I will now make my case:

1) Ledgehop nair requires you to have fresh invincibility from the ledge in order to beat out Firefox in transit, meaning you have to refresh invincibility at the right time. Walljumping gives you invincibility frames as soon as you leave the ledge, meaning you will beat out Firefox regardless of when you chose to grab ledge
2) Instant wall jump nair doesn't make you use up your double jump, so if you get a late or a weak hit nair that wouldn't knock them far enough away to take the stock, you can just hit them again while you're out there (double nair? dair for swag points?) to secure the kill and then use your unburnt double jump to make it back safely
3) Instant wall jump nair will usually result in you hitting the spacie further away from the ledge than you would have if you'd just ledgehop naired, meaning it is less likely that you will need to continue the edgeguard even if you get a weak hit or something.
4) Instant wall jump nair means your nair will be facing the spacie, significantly reducing the likelihood that you'll get a reverse hitbox and send the spacie onstage

Follow-up wall jump cancel questions; Young Link can cancel the commitment to walljumps with aerials, but will bomb throws also cancel it? What about bomb drops?

 

[schmooblidon]

You can't store a walljump with a special (except marios upb), as they do not carry the necessary functions. You can store the walljump by hugging a wall, then using the special, and by the end of the special, hugging the wall still (or grab ledge to store it). With that in mind, I can't see how it would be possible to store a walljump by runoff up-b.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

ignore me

 

[Yung Scrap]

I absolutely love this thread, I have learned so much just reading it. I also am quite a noob when it comes to competetive melee but I picked up young link and got pretty good. How come I haven't heard much about d-tilt spike for an up b recovery below the ledge? Is it because it can be meteor cancelled?
Also I found that if the spacie recovers horizontally onto the stage but below a platform (usually with a side b), dash attack into run off nair works quite well at lower percents. I have found it to work best against falco when I dash attack him at ~55%, as the amount of knockback is relatively low and keeps him close enough to the edge for a run off instant nair, then grab ledge for the kill.

 

[Brando550]

Here is a tournament set between me as YL and a Fox player (I don't remember his name) that I recorded on a VHS last month. It's nice being able to watch it over and over to see what I coulda done differently, and what I did right. Hope this helps you guys out to know which options work and which do not.

 

[TriNewton]

Here is a tournament set between me as YL and a Fox player (I don't remember his name) that I recorded on a VHS last month. It's nice being able to watch it over and over to see what I coulda done differently, and what I did right. Hope this helps you guys out to know which options work and which do not.

This isn't the right place to post that (I'm pretty sure), as this thread is devoted to edgeguarding spacies.

I have a gfycat to contribute: http://gfycat.com/FondPlayfulCarp#
(I haven't seen it anywhere else in the thread)
I think this one is good because of Laijin's usage of up-air to catch a firefox angle that ledgehop nair might not have covered and then immediately taking advantage of the survival DI (i.e. horrible combo DI) to combo the up-air into a nair.

EDIT: Source- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmE7jRde13c

 

[Brando550]

I posted it cause it has diff clips of me edgeguarding the fox (one of the 2 spacies) as Young Link. Maybe I can make a separate video of just the edgeguards, but I thought it would be good for the viewer to see the whole situation unfold. Sorry if I overstepped any boundaries. This is my first time posting on this forum.

*Edit: Where did you find that clip, anywho?

 

[TriNewton]

I posted it cause it has diff clips of me edgeguarding the fox (one of the 2 spacies) as Young Link. Maybe I can make a separate video of just the edgeguards, but I thought it would be good for the viewer to see the whole situation unfold. Sorry if I overstepped any boundaries. This is my first time posting on this forum.

*Edit: Where did you find that clip, anywho?

Edited my post with the source. Instead of posting the entire video, you could post timestamps (or even better, gfycats because they will be easier to open up, so more people will look at them).

You haven't really overstepped any boundaries. Don't worry too much.

 

[ihasabuket]

I have a gfycat to contribute: http://gfycat.com/FondPlayfulCarp#
(I haven't seen it anywhere else in the thread)
I think this one is good because of Laijin's usage of up-air to catch a firefox angle that ledgehop nair might not have covered and then immediately taking advantage of the survival DI (i.e. horrible combo DI) to combo the up-air into a nair.

While you are right I think that the nair after the boomerang was the wrong choice because he was so close to the stage. Weak hit nair at 77% just doesnt send fox far enough to guarantee a kill and the send angle gives him recovery options with good DI. After throwing the boomerang it probably would have been best to WD to the edge and cover options with dtilt so that he has to go up. If he goes straight up you can charge a dsmash and hit him when he comes down. If he gets hit by dtilt and metoercancels just run off nair and grab ledge. Because dtilt is such a strong metoer and you have to wait 8 frames to meteor cancel it forces fox to recover from a really low position. Once theyre that low a weak hit nair will be more than enough to secure the stock because he has to travel along a diagonal(or hypotenuse), which is longer than a verical/horizontal path starting from the same axis to the destination.
Never thought you'd use geometric concepts huh?

Edit: the best way to get to the very edge of the stage is to WD teetercancel. You do this by resetting the control stick to neutral before you get to the ledge.

 

[ihasabuket]

While were on the subject of geometry I thought I'd share a tip to make a quick estimate of Fox's up b range to to and from the ledge. Take a look at this picture I edited on paint.

Basically if you visualize a radius around the the ledge you can get a rough idea of whether or not fox can recover. Please note that the example above is by no means accurate, I was just trying to illustrate the general concept. So if you want to familiarize yourself with this range pick fox and up b from the ledge up, down, right, and some diagonals if you want. This should give you a rough idea to visualize a radius. You only have to pay attention to the semicircle offstage so dont worry about the whole circle.
So what this is useful for is that when theyre near the bottom half (and a bit of the upper half) you'll know you can just grab ledge to secure the stock. It may be best to use ledge attack to cover ledge though.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

That's a really cool concept. We can consider this recovery radius within the context of YL's own sphere of influence at the ledge to really visualize what he can and can't cover.

On the subject of prep time, I think there is a certain threshold of prep-time where throwing a preemptive boomerang is potentially more beneficial than getting into position to jab or trying to do a quick bomb pull ledge grab in terms of covering the immediate double jump up-B or side-B (provided they are not close enough to the stage that dash attack will hit the start up of up-B or side-B). The risk reward is low if you know they'll be coming from below the stage and using up their double jump to do so. We saw it in the first gfy I analyzed and the gfy that Newton posted. Thoughts? If you have any more time than that, you're better off taking ledge and/or grabbing a bomb.

I'll try to do another gfy write-up tomorrow, not sure yet. I ihasabuket , do you have any footage of Sveet's ledge attack edgeguard thing you were talking about? I've been wanting to take a look at that.

 

[TriNewton]

I ihasabuket

And what if they tech the d-tilt?

 

[ihasabuket]

No I dont, but its pretty easy to do and very practical.

I ihasabuket

And what if they tech the d-tilt?

Well dtilt has about 16 frames of endlag and jab has 6 frames of startup(22 frames total). Their fastest option from this is tech walljump(4 frames) into an immediate side b.
Falco's side b has a startup of 17 frames and hits 18-21. Idk how fast side covers distance but worst case scenario is that falco side b's over the ledge and you clank with the side b hitbox leaving you actionable fairly quickly to run back and punish him. Since he cant grab ledge until after frame 25 of the side b, a jab should be able to cover that option. In total his sequence is 21 frames where the hit starts frame 22. Your jab would come out the same frame.
Fox's side b has 21 frames of startup plus the 4 from walljump so you have a good frame advantage.
Should they choose to up b after tech walljump you can simply hit them out of startup.
Tech wall jump bair might be the most troublesome and if you dont position your dtilt well you'll get hit.

 

[Benny P]

I'm not sure if this really follows true to the "optimising" format, but jab from a spacie recovery from low with up b can be great on unsuspecting spacies, and can set up for good ol run off nair. (if inappropriate, delete)

 

[ihasabuket]

I'm not sure if this really follows true to the "optimising" format, but jab from a spacie recovery from low with up b can be great on unsuspecting spacies, and can set up for good ol run off nair. (if inappropriate, delete)

It works sometimes but they can sweetspot the ledge if you use jab. Dtilt reaches farther down.

 

[TriNewton]

https://youtu.be/djvHqpoXPkU?t=6m10s

Probably not the most optimal/guaranteed way to edgeguard spacies.... but if you can pull it off, it's worth it.

As the annotation says, watch out for the boomerang.

 

[GhettoNinja]

Just figured I'd drop by and give my 2 cents. The optimal Young Link edgeguard doesn't seem like a consistent thing. Depends on percent. For example notice there isn't a lot of discussion on SHFF Bomb Landing which if I remember correctly you can wavedash upon landing. Though I guess that requires a lot of for thought but you could argue that for true optimization a 20YL would always have a bomb in place for Edgeguards so I don't think it's as situational as its portrayed. So maybe like SHFFBD, Waveland at ledge and Down Tilt would cover below the ledge. The bomb is covering roll so they either have to jump from ledge (still limited by the bomb mind you) or regrab and risk getting D-Tilt'd plus Yink could Wavedash back and cover most options off ledge with an arrow. This is just for below the edge. I also think an important part of yink ledge game is knowing when to try to setup for other stuff. Like lets say they're at 70% and they have a relatively safe return. I think it makes more sense to use bomb drops to cover options then go for a grab read into the Dair spike (a common setup on spacies). I hope this was helpful as I was trying to come at this from a more abstract perspective without giving many definites and more of a broad setup overall.

Also incase you guys start talking about movement later I figured this was note worthy and underused by Yink mains
https://youtu.be/25lkeTXaY1gg
(Thanks based scrumpy)

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Optimally edgeguarding spacies is all nair work until you get a dsmash. It takes patience and multiple interactions, but it is possible to cover spacies' recoveries about as well as any top tier character. Nair is your primary tool, since it can beat both illusion and firefox. Dsmash is for covering illusion sweetspots and punishing predictable landings. If you dsmash fox or falco when they don't have a jump, they should be dead regardless of their percent. Nair kills usually require a few hits off stage and an edgehog.

Throwing projectiles should not be the primary objective in edgeguarding, but instead something to setup if you have extra time.

Boomerang can be useful to tap fox out of a down-angle sweetspot position if you have time to spare. But you could also react, jump forward and dj nair him in the same situation. If you are only trying to throw a projectile, then you will fail when you don't actually have time for one.

Arrows can be useful in covering illusion sweetspots. Fire arrows do surprising amounts of damage, and their knockback/stun is not terrible. After the hit, jump off and nair their firefox for a simple KO. I find the best time for an arrow is after dsmash sends them off, and they have to make a recovery from somewhat far and somewhat low.

Bombs are actually not that great, IMO. The trajectory isn't very useful for covering illusions, and the knockback usually helps them more than it hurts if you. If you pull one, you have two options. Use it to grab edge, or use it to hit them near the edge and try to follow up. Still not terrible, bombs are one of YL's best tools, but I think they are better used in the neutral/stage control game and left out of edgeguards.

 

[CnB | Chandy]

Optimally edgeguarding spacies is all nair work until you get a dsmash. It takes patience and multiple interactions, but it is possible to cover spacies' recoveries about as well as any top tier character. Nair is your primary tool, since it can beat both illusion and firefox. Dsmash is for covering illusion sweetspots and punishing predictable landings. If you dsmash fox or falco when they don't have a jump, they should be dead regardless of their percent. Nair kills usually require a few hits off stage and an edgehog.

At what point do you consider it to be better to edge guard from the ledge with a ledge hop nair as opposed to staying onstage and running off/jumping out and nairing? Is it a case by case sort of judgment or are there trends you've identified? In what sorts of situations is the invincibility from the ledge necessary to complete edgeguards? In what sorts of situations is it better to stay on stage to cover angles to platforms or on stage?

Do you recommend aiming to hit with the second hit of dsmash for edge guard purposes? Axe mentioned this on his stream. The back hit apparently sends at a lower angle, and since the animation ends much more quickly afterwards, you're in a better position to react to whatever ensuing option the spacie might use. Is this true? Or is it not even worth considering because, like you said, the front hit will end a stock either way in the situation in which you advised using it.

How do you feel about onstage coverage like jab or run-off up-B to set-up for offstage nairs? Do you think we should just be nairing every time?

Throwing projectiles should not be the primary objective in edgeguarding, but instead something to setup if you have extra time.

Boomerang can be useful to tap fox out of a down-angle sweetspot position if you have time to spare. But you could also react, jump forward and dj nair him in the same situation. If you are only trying to throw a projectile, then you will fail when you don't actually have time for one.

Arrows can be useful in covering illusion sweetspots. Fire arrows do surprising amounts of damage, and their knockback/stun is not terrible. After the hit, jump off and nair their firefox for a simple KO. I find the best time for an arrow is after dsmash sends them off, and they have to make a recovery from somewhat far and somewhat low.

Bombs are actually not that great, IMO. The trajectory isn't very useful for covering illusions, and the knockback usually helps them more than it hurts if you. If you pull one, you have two options. Use it to grab edge, or use it to hit them near the edge and try to follow up. Still not terrible, bombs are one of YL's best tools, but I think they are better used in the neutral/stage control game and left out of edgeguards.

As the only projectile Young Link has that can always stop Firefox in transit, I feel like bombs would be more useful than arrows, at the very least, for setting up the juicy stock-ending offstage nairs. The fact that bombs have a consistently powerful hitbox, a predictable trajectory, and multiple different throw arcs leads me to believe that they are useful if implemented correctly and usually worth pulling if you have the time.

Could you elaborate on the situations in which you feel it is more optimal to throw a boomerang and cover an option pre-emptively rather than pulling a bomb and taking edge? What do you think one covers that the other doesn't? Does more or less prep time affect your considerations, or would you say that boomerangs/arrows should always be preferable to bombs regardless of how much time you have?

I swear I'm gonna get to more edge guard templates, guys. Been real busy with the holidays and my other video.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

At what point do you consider it to be better to edge guard from the ledge with a ledge hop nair as opposed to staying onstage and running off/jumping out and nairing? Is it a case by case sort of judgment or are there trends you've identified? In what sorts of situations is the invincibility from the ledge necessary to complete edgeguards? In what sorts of situations is it better to stay on stage to cover angles to platforms or on stage?

Invincibility isn't necessary at any time for nair to beat a recovery option. Because of that, I generally stay on stage facing out and follow a sheik-like flowchart. Nair to cover sideb onto stage. Dsmash to cover sideb to ledge. Jump off and nair if they upb low.

If you do jump off after a spacie, your upb is a somewhat useful tool for keeping the edgeguard going. The first handful of hits do nothing but tap them, possibly stealing jumps or simply making them press upb again. In any case, it buys you time and afterwards you have invincibility. You have 3 practical choices with your invincibility: ledgehop nair, drop from edge nair, or scarjump nair -> double jump nair.

In any case, the flowchart is similar to sheik. Maintain stage control, cover their high options until they are forced to go low, then kill them when they are low.

Do you recommend aiming to hit with the second hit of dsmash for edge guard purposes? Axe mentioned this on his stream. The back hit apparently sends at a lower angle, and since the animation ends much more quickly afterwards, you're in a better position to react to whatever ensuing option the spacie might use. Is this true? Or is it not even worth considering because, like you said, the front hit will end a stock either way in the situation in which you advised using it.

I was under the impression that the back hit was weaker, but that was just empirical. The front hit is rather strong, in any case.

Anyways, it is not very practical to hit with the back hitbox in most cases because of the startup. 9 frames of startup for the front hit, 21 for the second hit. When you're edgeguarding spacies, you rarely have that much spare time. You're better off not committing to a move, observing your opponent, and reacting to his choices. Dsmash has low cooldown anyways.

Another interesting thing about dsmash is that the 2nd swing actually has a front hitbox as well. This can protect you in cases where the first hit wiffed. This is mostly for on stage use, though.

How do you feel about onstage coverage like jab or run-off up-B to set-up for offstage nairs? Do you think we should just be nairing every time?

I think nair is the best in virtually every case because of it's low startup, high priority, and low lag. I do use jab a bit, and I read your run off upb stuff above and it has me curious to try it. Mixups are definitely necessary in this game, so I never suggest doing the same thing every time.

I also use ftilt a little bit. It goes slightly below the edge and acts somewhat similar to samus' utilt (though it looks more like marth's fsmash). It can be useful for catching people double jumping back to the edge imperfectly.

As the only projectile Young Link has that can always stop Firefox in transit, I feel like bombs would be more useful than arrows, at the very least, for setting up the juicy stock-ending offstage nairs. The fact that bombs have a consistently powerful hitbox, a predictable trajectory, and multiple different throw arcs leads me to believe that they are useful if implemented correctly and usually worth pulling if you have the time.

Could you elaborate on the situations in which you feel it is more optimal to throw a boomerang and cover an option pre-emptively rather than pulling a bomb and taking edge? What do you think one covers that the other doesn't? Does more or less prep time affect your considerations, or would you say that boomerangs/arrows should always be preferable to bombs regardless of how much time you have?

As I was writing my post last night, there were many things I thought about and some things I left unsaid. This was one of the topics I abandoned.

Bombs are a tricky subject. In theory, they are up there with some of the best moves in the game because they win virtually every interaction. In neutral game, I think bombs are YL's best tool by far.

When edgeguarding, though, I find bombs to be an unnecessary extra hit. Because of the explosion, there are many ways the opponent can DI and survive. Jumping off stage to link the hit can sometimes give them options to escape the edgeguard and reverse it on you.

I do think there are some good uses for bombs in edgeguarding, like covering firefox downward sweetspots. But my main problem is that once you pull a bomb, it is very difficult to cover sideb recoveries (cannot do nair or dsmash with a bomb in your hand). I will have to explore your run-off upb option to see if it changes my view.

 

[ihasabuket]

There's a big misconception about reaction time so I'd like to show you guys this study I was shown some time ago. The basic gist is that the average reaction time, which is about 13 frames, only applies when you already know what option youre gonna use. If you have to distinguish between 2 different recoveries with corresponding options(in this case nair and dsmash) then the reaction takes well over 25 frames. Since jab covers side b both over and below the ledge(except for fox's lowest side b sweetspot) it is a simple reaction and is therefore much faster. Nair is also a 28 frame commitment(SHFF + landing lag) as opposed to jab.
Another factor people don't consider is that spacies can opt to side b really high so that you cant cover it. In this situation you need to punish the recovery rather than cover it. Bomb-> aerials are best to punish in these situations.
Firefox is pretty much reactable and young links recovery lets him go pretty far out for kills so that shouldnt be a problem.

I also disagree about mixups when edgeguarding spacies. They dont really have the aerial mobility to make their recovery ambiguous with drifting and airdodging. As young link it's more about covering side b since up b is pretty easy to cover. I think finding an optimal way to do this is the way to go. That said, it's good to have many options to fit different situations based on available time, postition, etc.

 

[Benny P]

i summon @MagicScrumpy !!! please give us your knowledge hailed from thugs mansion!